​The American Civil Liberties Union wants to learn more about any secret surveillance gadgets used by Florida law enforcement agencies after uncovering proof that police there relied on one type of spy tool upwards of 200 times without permission.

Nathan Freed Wessler, a staff attorney for the ACLU’s Speech,
Privacy and Technology Project, wrote on Monday this week that his
organization has filed public records requests with nearly 30
police and sheriffs’ departments across the Sunshine State in
hopes of having documents unsealed that would disclose how those
agencies use certain surveillance tools to track down cell
phones.

Police agencies across the country are increasingly relying on
specialized devices known as “stingrays” to conduct
investigations, but the powerful tools aren’t discussed in public
that much. Much to the ACLU’s surprise, however, officers in
Florida have been using such tools without even the oversight or
authorization of the court, raising new concerns about exactly
how rampant this type of surveillance actually is.

When implemented properly, a stingray can mimic the behavior of a
cell phone tower like the ones managed by major telecommunication
companies, tricking mobile devices into sending signals that
could then be used to track down a handheld phone to a physical
location within just a few feet.

Privacy advocates aren’t pleased by these devices, though, since
they allow law enforcement to suck up huge chunks of information
about potentially thousands of innocent people at once. And
according to the ACLU’s Wessler, Florida police have been playing
with these gadgets just about completely unchecked.

“As revealed in a recent opinion of a Florida appeals court, Tallahassee police used an
unnamed device — almost certainly a stingray — to track a stolen
cell phone to a suspect’s apartment,” he wrote on Monday
this week.

A stingray-like device absolutely aided the police in finding
that stolen cell phone and the suspect responsible, and the cops
raided the residence in order to make an arrest. Wessler wrote
that they didn’t bother obtaining a warrant in order to enter the
apartment, though, nor did they ask for the court’s authorization
to set up a fake cell tower.

In fact, Wessler revealed, the fact that the Tallahassee Police
Department actually had such a device at their disposable was
something that was supposed to be kept under wraps.

“Police opted not to get warrants authorizing either their
use of the stingray or the apartment search. Incredibly, this was
apparently because they had signed a nondisclosure agreement with
the company that gave them the device,” he wrote. “The
police seem to have interpreted the agreement to bar them even
from revealing their use of stingrays to judges, who we usually
rely on to provide oversight of police investigations.”

This was far from an isolated incident, though. Wessler wrote
that only when the case was appealed later on was it revealed
that TPD turned on their stingray at least 200 times to collect
information, without once ever asking for a warrant from a judge
or magistrate.

“Potentially unconstitutional government surveillance on this
scale should not remain hidden from the public just because a
private corporation desires secrecy. And it certainly should not
be concealed from judges,” Wessler wrote. “That’s why we
have asked the Florida court that originally sealed the
transcript to now make it available to the public. And that’s
also why we have asked police departments throughout Florida to
tell us whether they use stingrays, what rules they have in place
to protect innocent third parties from unjustified invasions of
privacy, and whether they obtain warrants from judges before
deploying the devices.”